On Sat, Jan 25, 2020 at 07:11:49PM -0800, Florian Fainelli wrote: > > > On 1/25/2020 11:24 AM, Leon Romanovsky wrote: > > On Sat, Jan 25, 2020 at 08:49:58PM +0200, Leon Romanovsky wrote: > >> On Sat, Jan 25, 2020 at 08:55:01AM -0800, Florian Fainelli wrote: > >>> > >>> > >>> On 1/25/2020 8:14 AM, Leon Romanovsky wrote: > >>>> From: Leon Romanovsky <leonro@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > >>>> > >>>> In order to stop useless driver version bumps and unify output > >>>> presented by ethtool -i, let's overwrite the version string. > >>>> > >>>> Before this change: > >>>> [leonro@erver ~]$ ethtool -i eth0 > >>>> driver: virtio_net > >>>> version: 1.0.0 > >>>> After this change: > >>>> [leonro@server ~]$ ethtool -i eth0 > >>>> driver: virtio_net > >>>> version: 5.5.0-rc6+ > >>>> > >>>> Signed-off-by: Leon Romanovsky <leonro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>> --- > >>>> Changelog: > >>>> v1: Resend per-Dave's request > >>>> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-rdma/20200125.101311.1924780619716720495.davem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > >>>> No changes at all and applied cleanly on top of "3333e50b64fe Merge branch 'mlxsw-Offload-TBF'" > >>>> v0: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-rdma/20200123130541.30473-1-leon@xxxxxxxxxx > >>> > >>> There does not appear to be any explanation why we think this is a good > >>> idea for *all* drivers, and not just the ones that are purely virtual? > >> > >> We beat this dead horse too many times already, latest discussion and > >> justification can be found in that thread. > >> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-rdma/20200122152627.14903-1-michal.kalderon@xxxxxxxxxxx/T/#md460ff8f976c532a89d6860411c3c50bb811038b > >> > >> However, it was discussed in ksummit mailing list too and overall > >> agreement that version exposed by in-tree modules are useless and > >> sometimes even worse. They mislead users to expect some features > >> or lack of them based on this arbitrary string. > >> > >>> > >>> Are you not concerned that this is ABI and that specific userland may be > >>> relying on a specific info format and we could now be breaking their > >>> version checks? I do not disagree that the version is not particularly > >>> useful for in-tree kernel, but this is ABI, and breaking user-space is > >>> usually a source of support questions. > >> > >> See this Linus's response: > >> "The unified policy is pretty much that version codes do not matter, do > >> not exist, and do not get updated. > >> > >> Things are supposed to be backwards and forwards compatible, because > >> we don't accept breakage in user space anyway. So versioning is > >> pointless, and only causes problems." > >> https://lore.kernel.org/ksummit-discuss/CA+55aFx9A=5cc0QZ7CySC4F2K7eYaEfzkdYEc9JaNgCcV25=rg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ > >> > >> I also don't think that declaring every print in the kernel as ABI is > >> good thing to do. We are not breaking binary ABI and continuing to > >> supply some sort of versioning, but in unified format and not in wild > >> west way like it is now. > >> > >> So bottom line, if some REAL user space application (not test suites) relies > >> on specific version reported from ethtool, it is already broken and can't work > >> sanely for stable@, distros and upstream kernels. > > > > And about support questions, > > I'm already over-asked to update our mlx5 driver version every time some > > of our developers adds new feature (every week or two), which is insane. > > So I prefer to have one stable solution in the kernel. > > Fair enough, can you spin a new version which provides this background > discussion and links into your commit message? Thanks for the feedback, I'm doing it now. > -- > Florian
